Employee Absenteeism and Turnover in the Workplace

Employers must consider the employees are their business. They greet and serve the customers, they open and close the store, they handle the money, and they work alongside the management of the company, daily. Each night, they leave, and each morning, the management of the company hopes they come back to work. In any company, employee turnover and absenteeism have the potential of becoming a significant and costly issue. For that reason, it’s important to have a solid attendance policy in place.

What is Absenteeism?

Absenteeism is a pattern or habit of an employee missing work, often for no good reason.

What is Turnover?

Turnover is the number or percentage of an employer's workforce that must be replaced due to the voluntary and involuntary separation of employees from employment. Voluntary turnover includes leaving employment to retire, illness, returning to school and better career opportunities, while involuntary turnover includes layoffs and terminations for poor performance or disciplinary problems.

 

Impact of Employee Absenteeism and Turnover to the Company

A high degree of absenteeism and turnover can cause serious problems for businesses. Absenteeism hurts productivity and costs money. For example, a company is currently suffering a high degree of absenteeism in its production department. Employees on the assembly line are often absent. The production employees must operate complex machinery that requires training, so temp employees don't have the requisite skills to pick up the slack for absent operators. Thus, production decreases with each absent employee. This costs the company money. Moreover, most of the absences are paid leave, which means even though production is down, labor costs remain the same

Turnover is even a more serious problem for the company. Not only can turnover cause productivity problems, but it results in the loss of human resources that may not be easily replaced. For example, some of the company's best and most innovative engineers and researchers have voluntarily separated from service to pursue other opportunities. Loss of these employees not only hurts productivity but weakens the company strategically because of the specialized skills and creativity that the employees brought with them. Even if the company can find the same quality of workers, the search, training and time involved costs serious cash.

 

The Causes of Employee Absenteeism and High Turnover

Low wages: The prospect of getting higher pay elsewhere is one of the most obvious contributors to turnover. Every industry has organizations that pay well and some that pay low. Employees might stay a little longer in times of recession because no other work is available, but they know they’re being exploited and will be looking for a way out.

Work environment: Turnover tends to be higher in environments where employees feel they are taken advantage of, where they feel undervalued or ignored, and where they feel helpless or unimportant. Clearly, if managers are impersonal, arbitrary, and demanding, there is greater risk of alienation and turnover.

Management policies: Management policies can also affect the environment which can lead to high turnover as well. In a way such as whether employee benefits and incentives appear generous or stingy, or whether the company is responsive to employees’ needs and wants. Management’s handling of major corporate events such as mergers or layoffs is also an important influence on the work environment afterwards.

Weak team leadership: Even if someone has been trained to do a specific job, they are usually working as part of team. They are alongside people with complementary roles, who together deliver a process or solution. If team lack strong leadership they will not function well, which will lead to disagreements and relationship breakdown.

Poor training: Asking employees often to do a job but not giving them adequate training will in fact demotivate the employees and hence allow them to leave the company.

Work stress: Work stress experienced at particular types of jobs can also create turnover.

Seasonal changes: seasonal changes such as the beginning of a school year can cause high turnover when part-timer, school-age employees return to their classrooms.

Demographically specific: Some turnover is demographically specific, particularly for women who are balancing significant work and family duties at the same time. Such women (or men) may choose to leave a company instead of sacrificing their other interests and responsibilities in order to make the job work out. These factors translate into higher turnover rates for women in many companies.

Inequitable evaluation: while preparing the performance appraisal of an employee, some managers will unfairly evaluate the employees’ performance which in fact de-motivate them and hence lead to high turnover rate.

Strained communications between management and employee: When a lack of communication exists in the organizational setting it has the potential to cause significant problems between management and employees.

 

How to improve employee retention with the company?

1. Create flexible working hours.

There’s currently a lot of chatter about Millennial and how to manage them. More than two-thirds of all service-industry employees are under 35 years old, and three out 10 are between ages 19 and 26. Often, they’re students balancing inconsistent study schedules, or people working multiple jobs. Millennial value flexibility and being flexible to your employees’ personal obligations when building a schedule will greatly improve their satisfaction. Better yet, provide them with the ability to give input into their start and end times.

2. Be consistent.

Last-minute changes can make income and life unpredictable for workers, and is now getting attention from politicians in states like Oregon and New York. Creating consistent weekly schedules weeks in advance is a big win if you’re looking to improve employee retention. Look for a software provider that enables you to create reusable scheduling templates, informs your employees of their schedules weeks in advance, and allows them to submit requests for time off or trade a shift with a colleague.

3. Offer training.

Professional development is a powerful way of keeping employees happy and productive. Can you offer your employees training in some new skills? Can they work in another department one day a week, or move over entirely to see a new part of the business? Is there a relevant seminar or class they want to take that might also improve their work? Think outside the box, and you’ll watch your employees’ contentment and productivity rise.

4. Incentivize results.

Even when times are busy (always), don’t forget to reward your star performers. Results that go unnoticed can be deflating to employees and can give them a reason to start looking elsewhere. Look at ways to keep track of employees who consistently perform. For example, acknowledge their on-time arrivals (some software solutions can track this automatically), and reward them with a small token of appreciation. Your employees will appreciate the recognition and feel inspired to continue their efforts.

5. Communicate.

Last, but definitely not least, communication is fundamental to any relationship, and it’s particularly important in the workplace. Some messages need to be communicated verbally and in person, like feedback on how an employee is doing at his or her job. Other messages can be delivered electronically. For instance, most small businesses still handle time-off or shift trade requests on paper or verbally, and these can easily get lost or forgotten. Putting systems in place that improve the ability to quickly and clearly communicate with employees can have a huge impact on employees’ output.

Reducing employee turnover should be a goal for all grocery store owners and managers. If you follow these suggestions, your employees will want to remain with you, and you’ll be glad they did.

References

Waldmann, J., (2017). 5 Tips To Reduce Employee Turnover & Absenteeism. [online] Progressive Grocer. Available at: https://progressivegrocer.com/5-tips-reduce-employee-turnover-absenteeism

[Accessed 4 July 2020].

Ukessays.com. (2020). Causes Of Absenteeism And High Turnover Of Staff. [online] Available at: https://www.ukessays.com/essays/management/identify-the-causes-of-absenteeism-and-high-turnover-staff-management-essay.php

[Accessed 04 July 2020].